


Dec 1

by dizzy



Series: Crisscolfer Advent 2015 [1]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5332247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Darren Criss and Chris Colfer are neighbours who have never really spoken and have rarely given the other any thought...until they somehow find themselves in a battle for the best Christmas decorations. May the best man win."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dec 1

It starts with a wreath that one of Darren's roommates puts on their door. It's made entirely of paper plates haphazardly colored in green with magic marker, and in the center is a paper candle made to look like a penis. 

It's awful. It's awful and Chris is, on principle, annoyed with the eyesore. 

Ashley cracks up the first time she sees it and tells him lighten up. 

"Have you even met your neighbors?" Ashley asks. "They're fucking awesome." 

"They're loud," Chris says. He's perched at his desk with his glasses slipping down his nose and the cat warming his feet. It would be a perfect picture of late December if not for the fact that Ashley still has a key and still doesn't know when to shut up. "That's all I need to know." 

She's stretches out on his sofa with the remote in her hand. "They're cute, too." 

"Are they gay?" Chris asks, curiosity momentarily piqued. 

"You realize that there are like four of them, right?" 

"Huh?" Chris frowns. "Really?" 

"You are the most unobservant asshole I have ever met," Ashley laughs, and then she gives him the rundown. The short one that plays the guitar, the tall one she kind of has a thing for, the one with the biceps whose ass she wants to take a bite out of- 

"We need to work on your male objectification," Chris interrupts. 

"We need to work on getting you laid," she says, sitting up. "I mean, four of them. One of them probably bats for your team." 

"I have no interest in the neighbors," Chris says. "Or this conversation. I'm trying to write." 

He goes back to his laptop, which is his first mistake - because in doing so he completely misses the ponderous look on her face. 

*

He wakes up the next morning to laughter by his window. 

It's the neighbors, the guys in the house. He rolls over in bed, wishing he could drown them out. 

"We're so getting one of those-"

And then the voices fade out and Chris gives them no more thought at all until that evening when he leaves to take Cooper on his daily walk and realizes that his lawn has a new addition... a six foot tall rainbow Christmas tree. 

* 

"I fucking hate you," Chris snarls at Ashley. 

She's completely unphased. She knows his bark is worse than his bite. 

"Your house needed some pep," she says. "Some of that Christmas homo-days spirit. The spirit of Jolly Old Saint Dick all up in your chimney-" 

"Seriously, why?" 

She laughs. "Because now you'll know if any of them are gay." 

"I don't think this plan is going to work the way you think it's going to work," Chris says. 

Ashley just laughs again. "It'll work." 

*

The next day there are twinkling rainbow lights on the neighbors windows. 

* 

"Okay," Chris says. "But you realize I still don't know which one is gay, right? So I don't know what exactly you're thinking will happen..." 

"Um." Ashley hums thoughtfully. "Let me get back to you on that." 

* 

Of course, Chris has seen his neighbors around. 

He just doesn't... notice much. He's always had that ability to just tune everything around him out until he has a reason not to. 

And now apparently he has a reason, because his eyes flit toward the little house next door more and more often. He starts to pay attention to little things, like how they seem to produce five times as much trash and recycling as he does on garbage day, and how usually some kind of music or laughter or voices can be heard faintly when he gets near. Ashley was right; there are four of them at least, and often visitors too, with how the number and arrangement of vehicles in the driveway changes constantly. 

Chris wonders, briefly, what it would be like to live with that many people. His little house seems dark and quiet and still but it's rarely oppressive to him, except maybe once in a while around the holidays... like now. 

 

*

Chris goes to take the rainbow tree down, but when the eighty year old woman across the street glares at him and hisses that he's a fag, he decides it can stay. 

"Who pissed in her Cheerios?" 

Chris jumps. "Oh my god, where did you come from?" 

It's one of the neighbors, the one with the curly hair that he currently has a beanie jammed on top of. The short one, according to Ashley. "Sorry, man!" He holds his hands up to illustrate his innocence. "I just overheard. She's, uh. A piece of work, isn't she? She had a lot to say about our wreath, too." 

"She's a bitter, hateful old hag." Chris glares at her porch even though she's not outside anymore. 

The man grins at him. "That, too. I'm Darren, by the way. I, uh - we've never met, but - I dig your tree, man." 

"I'm Chris." He holds a hand out and they shake. Darren has a warm grasp despite the bite of the air around them. Chris immediately begins subconsciously analyzing him for sexuality hints. (Fuck Ashley, it's not because of her insinuations - it's really not.) "My friend put that there. Decided my Christmas needed to be a little, uh... gayer... I guess." 

"Who couldn't use that?" Darren smirks. "I mean, you know, mine's gayer, but... yours isn't a bad start." 

"A bad start?" Chris is amused, but playing affronted. "That sounds like a challenge." 

"Maybe it is..." Darren winks at him. He takes a couple steps back. Chris only realizes then that there's a car running in the driveway, with someone actually in it. "I mean, we might give Mrs. Porter a coronary, but..." 

"That implies she actually has a heart." Chris leans against his doorframe. "Um, see you around, I guess?" 

Darren smiles. "I hope so." 

Chris raises a hand to wave at him, then immediately winces and curses his own awkwardness as soon as he's back inside. 

*

He comes home the next day to find a Christmas card taped to his front door. It has two naked men in Santa hats using candy canes in a most creative (and probably unsanitary) manner. Chris tugs it down and opens it. On the inside someone has written, _Game on?_

He looks next door and realizes that Darren's done some decorating. A large blow up snowman with a tophat on and an extremely inappropriately placed carrot is proudly displayed in the center of the yard. 

He calls Ashley and tells her he's going to need her help. 

"With what?" She asks, delighted. 

"I think I'm having a Christmas gay off." 

* 

Over the next two weeks, a ruthless competition emerges. 

Ashley shows up with cutout of two reindeer fucking. 

Darren starts to play a holiday club mix from seven to nine pm every night, complete with the rainbow lights set to flashing. 

Chris does some Amazon shopping of his own and find a set of strangely well crafted and completely weird buff mermen Santas to put along his walkway. 

Darren manages to somehow find a nativity scene where the three wise men are having an actual threesome. 

They don't talk again but every day there's some little new addition, and it quickly becomes the highlight of Chris's day to try and figure out what else is there and imagine Darren doing the same. 

*

On December twentieth, it all comes crashing down. 

In his mailbox, Chris finds a letter from the neighborhood collectively requesting that houses 4504 and 4506 stop exposing their children to such vulgarity. 

Shame-faced, Chris takes his stuff all down, stowing most of it away - though he decides to keep the rainbow tree out. By the time he takes Cooper out the next day, the stuff is gone from Darren's yard, too. 

* 

On December 24th, Chris hears a knock on the door. He's halfway between apprehensive and excited that it might be Darren. 

But there's no one there when he opens it, just a small neatly wrapped box on the ground. He almost retreats inside but he realizes the handwriting on the gift tag sticker is the same writing he saw on the note a few days ago. 

The paper is normal, decorated with little Santas. The red box he finds when he peels it back is normal. The tissue paper inside the box is normal, crinkly and green.

The delicate red ornament underneath is anything but normal. Chris laughs so hard he snorts and almost drops the box, then lifts it by the hanger at the top. It's dark red and delicate and... shaped like balls. 

He hangs it on his tree and actually takes a moment to admire it before going back to pick the box up. 

Written on a piece of paper he'd almost missed is Darren's name and a phone number.


End file.
